Journalistic Accountability

Tech blog idea: A site that covers the top headlines on Techmeme 6, 12, or 18 months after they happened, and explores the delta between what people said was going to happen when they raised funding, or did an acquisition, and what actually happens after time has run its course. We keep covering announcements like they matter. Can also compare analyst and commentator predictions for claim chowder.

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5 replies on “Journalistic Accountability”

Theoretically interesting but in practice no one wants to hear about old stuff.
For example did you know Slack is basically a redux of FirstClass which has been around forever? Do you care?
And people still quote Apple haters who got it all wrong over and over.
I won’t name names on your blog, but there are plenty.
I even saw an article about Steve Jobs admitted killing OpenDoc was a bad idea.
Who even knows what OpenDoc was supposed to be, except the OpenDoc concept is very much alive and well and everywhere. Still no one cares.
There is a very important use of this – focusing more on the big picture instead of mastering every micro-life cycle. I started with Microsoft Word 1.1 in ’86 and I am stuck on Office 2008 now. Word makes me want to go back to an IBM Selectric. I try not to use it ever.

I like this, and it should be pitched as investigative journalism. It isn’t just providing a score card on how well people followed through, it is about telling the story of why something worked, or didn’t.

Totally agree. I’d like to extend this past tech announcements into other news. Like, the Malaysian airline that disappeared. You hear all about it for a few days or a week and then nothing for months, years or eternity until some piece of wreckage comes ashore. Keeping tabs on “open threads” would be nice.